Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/634

 622 FEDEBA^L BBPOBTEB. �purely artificial and arbitrary fuies like those regulating the lights to be carried. Tbese rules have been made oper- ative by act of congress. Are the rule of the port helm and the rule of the colored side lights, as preseribed by act of con- gress, merely regulations of foreign and interstate commerce? They undoubtedly are regulations of commerce, and as such binding as matter of positive law on American ships en- gagea in interstate and foreign commerce while within the territorial limits of the United States. But the supreme court has expressly held, as to the rule of the lights to be carried at sea, that since the adoption of the rule by congress, it may be as a regulation of commerce, the rule is to be re- gardedas the rule of the sea — a part of the maritime law of the United States to be administered in its admiralty courts. The Scotia, 14 Wall. 187. The court there saya : "Undoubtedly, no single nation can change the law of the sea. That law is of universal obligation, and no statute of one or two nations can create obligations for the world. Like ail the laws of nations, it rests upon the consent of civilized communities. It is of force, not because it was preseribed by any superior power, but because it has been generally accepted as a rule of con- duct. Whateyer may have been its origin, whether in the usages of navigation or va the ordinances of maritime states, or in both, it has become the law of the sea only by the con- current sanction of those nations who may be said to consti- tute the commercial world. Many of the usages wbich prevaU, and whicb bave the force of law, doubtless originated in the positive prescriptions of spme single state, which were at first of limited effect, but which, when generally accepted, became of universal obligation. * * * And it is evident that unless general assent is efficacious to give sanction to interna- tional law, there never can be that growth and development of maritime rules which the constant changes in the instru- ments and necessities of navigation require. Changes in nautical rules have taken place. How bave they been ac- complished, if not by the concurrent assent, express or under- stood, of maritime nations? When, therefore, we find such rules of navigation as are mentioned in the Britisb orders ia ����